How do you get kids interested in healthy food

A thread on UKScrappers has just inspired me to write this.

How do you get kids interested in eating healthy food?

Get them helping make pizzas. If you have a breadmaker, use the dough setting, chuck in the ingredients on timer if necessary so the dough is ready when they come home from school. Let them make the tomato sauce, really easy, onion finely chopped, fry until golden, add tinned chopped tomatoes salt & pepper to taste. Provide lots of lovely toppings and get them to make their own pizza. If you want to make the tomato sauce yourself, you can blitz in some carrots etc so they don't see them.

Involve the children in the cooking, when they are chopping the veg, steal and eat bits of raw carrot, celery, cucumber etc, core from cauliflower/cabbage, celeriac, swede.

Get them growing some of their own food, radishes, carrots, lettuce, they will love growing then eating them fresh. Pop in some peas, I never expected to get a meal, I let my DD graze on the produce in the garden, there's nothing like seeing them think they are being naughty picking a pod of peas and eating them straight from the pod.

How many times were we caught nicking chocolate, icecream etc, and felt wicked doing it, do the same with veg, my DD eats anything now. Nick the healthy stuff and they will too, hee hee, easy way to get the good stuff into them.

Also how about getting a children's cookery book, or simple cookery book, let them pick a new recipe each week, they take it in turns and cook together, they make the shopping list, help you shop for the ingredients choosing what they need, then cook it themselves, with your help. Let them make a mess, it doesn't matter, but boost their confidence in the kitchen, can't make the same dish twice, the good ones get added to your like list and can go into the normal cooking during the week. I used to do this with my mum and it was brilliant fun.

I used to make a lovely English curry from a 101 recipe book by Good Housekeeping, that involved onion, chopped apple, sultanas.

If you see an offer for cheap fruit get them making jam with you, great to have on some bread. No preservatives and so easy.

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Middle Eastern Tabbouleh Salad

Ingredients

8 oz (225 g) cracked wheat (bulghar) (available from health food shops)

2 oz (50 g) parsley, finely chopped

8 spring onions, finely chopped (including the green parts)

4 tablespoons lemon juice

2 large beef tomatoes, about 1 lb (450 g)

4 inches (10 cm) cucumber, very finely chopped

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

salt and freshly milled black pepper

Start off by measuring the cracked wheat into a bowl. Cover it with plenty of cold water and leave for approximately 20 minutes or until the grains soften and lose their crunchiness (which means, of course, you'll have to bite a few to find out how they're going).

Then have ready a large sieve. When the cracked wheat has softened, pour the contents of the bowl into the sieve, drain well to extract as much water as possible. Shake the wheat into a deep bowl and stir in the parsley and spring onions followed by the lemon juice and 1½ teaspoons of salt to combine thoroughly.

Meanwhile, finely chop the tomatoes quite small and add to the bowl containing the wheat. Next, add the cucumber and olive oil to the salad and mix to combine everything. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Pasted from <http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/middle-eastern-tabbouleh-salad,731,RC.html>

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Thai Green or Red Chicken Curry

Green Thai chicken curry with coriander garnish

Thai green or red curry with chicken and vegetables

There is nothing like the aroma of Thai curry to activate your taste buds and I frequently get lots of comments and visitors for tasters on holiday when the smell wafts across the campsite. 

This is a very simple recipe to make and tastes amazing, it can be ready in 10 minutes if you grab a hot roast chicken from a supermarket, it will take longer using fresh chicken. 

I normally buy the Mae Ploy brand from the Chinese supermarket and it is a hotter version.

The Thai Taste is milder and available from most supermarkets.

If you like a hot curry (madras heat), then use a red Thai paste. For a milder curry, use green. This still depends on the brand though, some are hotter than others. We normally buy our paste from the local Chinese supermarket.

One of the best purchases we ever made was our Tefal rice cooker, it has simplified the cooking of rice, stopped us needing to add salt and guarantees perfectly cooked rice that keeps warm when it's finished cooking. My trick is to use 1/3 cup of rice per person. Wash the rice well and cook according to the instructions. I normally set the rice going as I start cooking the curry, it will be perfectly ready by the time the curry has finished cooking. It will be light a fluffy.

Ingredients (serves 4 people)

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 onion, sliced
2 tablespoons Thai green curry paste or red curry paste
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 tin coconut milk 

6 fresh lime leaves (optional for the green curry)

1 stalk lemongrass (optional)
2 large chicken breasts (raw or ready cooked) cut into 1inch pieces - alternative a normal pack of chicken thighs/drumsticks

A selection of fresh vegetables, (3 of the following) Pak Choi, baby sweetcorn, mangetout, courgette. For a red curry you could add sliced red pepper.

1 cup of Thai fragrant rice or basmati rice
cold water to cover by half an inch

Method

Add rice to a saucepan and wash under the cold tap a couple of times. The water will turn cloudy, this is the starch in the rice which would make it sticky when cooked. Cover the rice with enough cold water to reach half an inch above the level of the rice. Bring to the boil, stir once, cover with a tight-fitting saucepan lid and turn heat to the lowest simmer possible. Don't be tempted to look at the rice, leave it for 10 minutes then turn off the heat. Leave rice until you are ready to serve the curry. Fluff the rice with a fork before serving.

In a wok or large frying pan, heat the oil of a medium heat, add the curry paste and fry for about 1 minute stirring continuously, be careful it does spit.

Add the coconut milk and fish sauce, stir and simmer for about 1 minute. Add the lime leaves and bash the lemongrass with the back of a large knife, then add to the sauce.

Add the chicken to the sauce and turn heat to a simmer. Stir occasionally. If raw cook for about 15 minutes, if using chicken pieces then about 30 minutes. If using ready-cooked, for about 5 minutes. 

Add the sliced vegetables, stir and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Serve

Tip

When you buy the traditional green or red pastes which come in plastic tubs, I normally add the paste to a small bowl and mix in some water to rehydrate the paste. Be warned, use only 2 teaspoons of this paste unless you love a vindaloo level of heat.

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Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

1 onion, sliced

125g button mushrooms, sliced

50g butter

250g sirloin steak

25g plain flour

Salt & pepper

1 tablespoon tomato puree

125ml pot sour cream

Method

Fry the onions in the 25g of the butter until soft add the mushrooms and fry together until soft. Spoon the onions and mushrooms onto a separate plate, keep the remaining butter in the pan, add the rest of the butter and melt.

Slice the beef into thin strips and then toss in seasoned flour. Remove excess flour and then fry the beef until golden brown. Return the onions and mushrooms to the pan with any juices. Add the sour cream and tomato puree, stir carefully over a gentle heat, season to taste.

Serve with boiled rice or noodles.

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Courgette fritters

Just had to dream up something for daughter's breakfast and then I remembered a conversation we had on Friday evening about the vegetables she would like to grow in the garden this year. She remembered picking one of her courgettes and then having courgette fritters last year for breakfast. Then I realised that courgettes had arrived this week in my organic box.

Courgette Fritters

1 courgette - grated on large holes
1 egg
self raising flour
salt and pepper

Grate the courgette and put in a bowl, season with salt and pepper add the egg straight into the bowl with the courgette, mix well then add enough self-raising flour to make a dropable batter.
Heat some sunflower oil in a frying pan, spoon in tablespoons of the batter then shallow fry until golden brown, turn and fry the other side.
Serve with some tomato ketchup.

If you want to add some additional flavour, I've added some chopped spring onions, chopped chilli. Also 25g grated cheddar cheese changes it up too.

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